Paste wax ingredients question

[Fish4evr]

Most Of the paste wax recipes I have found have the same ingredients, bees wax or other wax, Turpentine, and linseed oil. And they all seem to have different proportions / ratios. My question is first, what is the purpose of each ingredient (why is it used)? and second, what if you leave one out? Such as  you only used wax and turpentine,  or just wax and linseed oil?

Just curious.

[Nobody Special]

There's multiple things going on. With normal linseed oil, turpentine acts to speed drying time. This isn't as important with modern boiled linseed oil, which already contains chemical drying agents. In this case though, turpentine acts as a solvent for the beeswax.

Oil also helps to soften the beeswax so it spreads more evenly and fills pores in the metal (or wood for that matter). When applied with enough heat, the oil smokes and kind of bakes in as well, similar to seasoning a pan, which adds color as well as helping it spread. Wax or oil either one serves to coat the metal and protect it from moisture and exposure to oxygen, both of which speed oxidation, i.e. rust.

Oil by itself though tends to come off faster, and beeswax by itself tends to be sort of, well, waxy. Smells wonderful, but it's a bit gummy, and can eventually become brittle and flake off. That's less of an issue when mixed with oils. I've used mixes of beeswax and various oils on wood to, to pretty good effect, although I leave out the turpentine in that application. In that case, I also usually avoid a drying oil like linseed or grapeseed.

Ah, the other thing. If you leave out beeswax, the oil will come off faster, especially in outdoors applications. Linseed is tough when it hardens, but not impervious. Leave out turpentine, and the beeswax doesn't spread as well and is more difficult to apply. Leave out the oil and the finish isn't as durable, is harder to apply, and doesn't smoke itself dark (if anything, the wax will want to burn off when applied with too much heat).

[JHCC]

The only thing I can add to Nobody Special's excellent response is that the addition of turpentine makes the whole mixture more liquid, which helps it flow into the recesses of chiseled design or similar nooks and crannies.

[Frosty]

Beeswax stays sticky, a polymerizing oil oxidizes and into a durable non staining varnish. Turpentine softens the mixture and evaporates out reasonably quickly It also reduces the viscosity allowing the wax/oil to penetrate more deeply. 

My preferred wax finish finish is "Trewax" a carnuba paste wax, the kind used to armor bowling alleys and requires sanding to strip. "Bowling Ally Wax" is another comparable carnuba paste wax.

If you want a finish that lasts a long time, use the traditional blacksmith's iron finish. Paint it, enamel or acid etch epoxy work very well. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Nobody Special]

The rizzler, should you afford the glow-up, is Rennaissance Wax, a microcrystalline wax made from crude oil, or really, a blend of them, no cap. It was developed and is still used for conservation of antiquities and museum pieces. It's not going to be vastly better outdoors and is a lot more expensive though, last I checked about $70 a quart. Paint is cheap and effective. I like clear paints to preserve the grey of forged iron or black oxide layers, but they've got to be dry, dry, dry, or you can get rust spots under the paint.